As you all probably know, I'm an independent user - I don't work for Flynn. I did tech support for 25 years on various platforms from mainframes down to pc's and when I found Atahualpa I started answering questions and Flynn finally asked me to be a moderator and he generously put up a donate button for me (thanks to all who have found my help valuable and donated to me!)

One of the benefits to being a moderator is that Flynn has given me the chance to break...um..er..try out ThemeFrame before it goes public. And, like any good support guy, I tried to screw it up in every way I could (every bug I find and he fixes is one that twenty of you won't trip on).

The version I played with was the 'plugin' version - this will not be what is released. What will be released will be a stand alone product, ie it won't run under the WordPress umbrella, it will run on it's own. You will be able to include the CSS in your theme, etc, but that's to come and I haven't seen it yet, so back to the pre-beta version.

When I took my first look, I was intimidated!! Where are the nice boxes I love in Atahualpa, what are all these boxes??There are so many options...I was very nervous. This is not for a beginner!

But then I started to poke at the beast and...it didn't bite me! I realized that there are settings for each section of the page and each one brings up the same box. And then I started setting some of the items ("Let's make the border, green and slide the...oooh look at that...it's getting bigger!!! Oh cool I can set three corners or just one. I didn't know you could set the spacing between words?)

Just to give you an idea of the sheer number of options, for each element there is a:

BORDER
- you can set all or any combination of sides.
- each side can be solid, dotted or dashed - independent of the other sides
- each side can have it's own color
- each side can have it's own thickness

MARGIN
- you can set all or any combination of sides.
- each margin can be set independent of the others or set to AUTO

PADDING
- you can set all or any combination of sides.

CORNER
- you can set all or any combination of corners.
- you can set the diameter of each corner different
- you can choose (or not choose) to create the corners for IE 6/7/8 (With Javascript)

BACKGROUND
- color
- repeat - both, x, y or none
- scroll or fixed
- background image that you can select
- set the position of the image with a set of sliders

TEXT
- font family - up to three choices
- font color
- font weight
- font style
- font alignment
- font size (via a slide bar)
- line height (via a slide bar)
- letter spacing (via a slide bar - can go negative)
- word spacing (via a slide bar - can go negative)
- text indent (via a slide bar)
- text transform
- text variant
- text decoration

SIZE
- set the horizontal and vertical independent, or have them set automatically
- use PX, EM or %

POSITION
- Display (none, block inline, inline-block, inline-table, list-table, run-in, table, table-caption, table-cell, table-column, table-column-group, table-footer, table-header, table-row, table-row-group, inherit)
- Visibility (visible, hidden, collapse, inherit)
- Z-index (-5 to 10)
- Overflow (visible, hidden, scroll, auto, inherit)
- Float (left, right, none, inherit)
- Clear (right, left, none, both, inherit)
- Position (absolute, fixed, relative, static, inherit)
- top/bottom/left/right auto or set with sliders

All this for each and every one of the 72 areas of the layout, 7 areas of the content, 16 areas of the horizontal menu and 16 areas of the horizontal menu 2.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the sliders to set the sidebars and layout width and the import/export settings and create function for the CSS and JS Files??

While it seems overwhelming, it's not, it's just a powerful program that's going to turn CSS style sheet creation into a WYSIWYG.

And to think, Flynn has coded this all himself.

Sounds great! Any plans for a full set of documentation in addition to a video or two? Like many others, I'm more of a reader than a watcher, so a complete set of documentation would be a big help.

Jack
[Backhanded way of repeating my previous offer to help write and/or edit some documentation.]

JD, you lucky dog! Can't wait to get my grubby mitts on this thing. Kudos in advance to Flynn for all of his hard work on Themeframe, and to you, JD, for helping him out here so he could concentrate on the coding.

The version I played with was the 'plugin' version - this will not be what is released. What will be released will be a stand alone product, ie it won't run under the WordPress umbrella, it will run on it's own. You will be able to include the CSS in your theme, etc, but that's to come and I haven't seen it yet, so back to the pre-beta version.

sorry - could you explain this a bit better - i thought themeframe was a wordpress theme like Atahualpa, what do you mean by it wont run under the wordpress umbrella - am i reading this wrong ?

im sure this has been covered somewhere else but i didnt see it so if it is then apologies

Themeframe WILL CREATE stylesheets that can be used with a WordPress theme (and in the future with some other products). But the program will not be part of wordpress, ie you won't get to it from the WordPress dashboard.

I don't have the specifics, but I imagine you will install it in a folder on your site - say 'themeframe' and then to start it you will use 'http://yourdonaim.com/themeframe' and it will start running so you can create your theme.

Does that help?

yes thanks - but hopefully we'd be able to use themframe to edit the generated theme remotely is all im wondering - but we'll have to wait to see

JD, it's fun to imagine what it's going to be. I had thought it would be more like Artisteer, an application that will create a new theme, then output the code to be imported into WP as a theme.

But looking at the URL in the video, it looks like it's really part of WP admin, more like a plugin?

It WAS a plugin, but it WILL BE a stand alone product (php, online).

If the new themeframe will not be a Word Press theme then

How will that affect all present WP Ata sites?
Will ata no longer be supported in WP?
What about Plugins from WP, will they still work and can new ones still be applied?

It will be/create a Wordpress theme

Can't wait to start using it!

Hi Flynn, any estimate for when the public beta will be released?

Just curios about one thing:

will this themeframe product help me built themes (standalone ones) or is it like a theme framework like thesis or hybrid?

it builds a stand alone theme - once the theme is created it can be used without ThemeFrame. It currently builds themes for wordpress, but the developer has stated that the future may include Joomla themes and more.

JD, I submitted my $40 via PayPal yesterday but have not seen anthing appear to change that gives me access to the pre-beta. Can you please advise me as to what I need to do? I have my confirmation number, if you need it.
Thanks very much,

Bob

Bob, you should be set now to access the ThemeFrame Members forum

If Themeframe is able to produce Joomla themes, that would be incredible because I really want to learn how to use Joomla, but I don't know of any easy to edit themes like Atahualpa for it. Themeframe would be the perfect solution.

I love Atahualpa because of how easy it is to customize, there is no other Wordpress theme that matches it. Themeframe appears to be pretty much the same...but better.

Going to donate to get to $40...hope Flynn's special is still going on.

Originally Posted by ovizii

Just curios about one thing:

will this themeframe product help me built themes (standalone ones) or is it like a theme framework like thesis or hybrid?

As mentioned by Juggledad, it will create standalone themes so in that regard it is very different from Thesis or Hybrid and more like Artisteer if you will.

I did not have enough time for poking around this, but could you give access to this to a MU user? to customize/create his/her own themes? that would be awesome...

ThemeFrame doesn't run 'under' WordPress, it is standalone.

I'm intrigued.

-How are people finding Themeframe now that it's been available for a while?
-As a semi-competent Atahualpa user (but no coder) would I be lost?

Only temporarily. I'm not a coder either, and I was boggled with all the options and sliders.... but following the instructions I had my first test site up by the end of the day.

Altho it's not the same, knowing Atahualpa and its options, you would soon be at home with TF, I'd think. mho

Rob